Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War.... In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western [sic] Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.
[The Crusades] were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.
The Crusades: When Christendom Pushed Back
So, if not for the Islamic jihad, Islamic imperialism would there have been a Crusade?
There was atrocities committed by both sides. War is war and it is far from humane. I'm not in defense of Christianity or saying the Christians were on the right side of this war, more to point out our history is one of religious war. It doesn't matter what the scripture say. What matters is that religion has provided man with the motivation to expand their control of others, in the "name of God".
I'm also not saying this is the Christianity or Islam of today, however I am saying it is a good thing it is not.
[The Crusades] were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.
The Crusades: When Christendom Pushed Back
So, if not for the Islamic jihad, Islamic imperialism would there have been a Crusade?
There was atrocities committed by both sides. War is war and it is far from humane. I'm not in defense of Christianity or saying the Christians were on the right side of this war, more to point out our history is one of religious war. It doesn't matter what the scripture say. What matters is that religion has provided man with the motivation to expand their control of others, in the "name of God".
I'm also not saying this is the Christianity or Islam of today, however I am saying it is a good thing it is not.